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FTA Beginning

F
or over four decades, Foothill College has received wide acclaim for its educational innovations, high academic standards, and rigorous dedication to teaching and learning. Out of this context, our formal conversation on the scholarship of teaching began in September 1997 when Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, addressed our faculty at the Fall Opening Convocation. This address launched a series of monthly seminars focused on various aspects of student learning and pedagogy led by Foothill's president, Bernadine Fong. These President's Seminars have been enhanced by less formal dialogues as well as open forums which include the entire campus community twice a year.
Beginning in January, 1999, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a Foothill College music professor and the Carnegie Foundation California Professor the Year (1998) assumed responsibilities for directing the Foothill College Teaching Academy and its "Campus Conversations." The core of Foothill's academy is its Faculty Leadership Group.

Leadership Group and Campus Consultants

E
lizabeth Barkley met with President Bernadine Fong, Dean of Faculty Warren Hurd, Academic Senate President Larry Rouse, and the nine Division Deans of Foothill's academic divisions to identify outstanding faculty who had special expertise in online education and/or student diversity. Invitations to participate also went out to the entire faculty through two president's memos and the Academic Senate. Out of these discussions, nine faculty were selected because of their special expertise in the two issue areas and because they represented a wide range of disciplines; transfer, vocational, and student services areas; and consisted of both new and "seasoned" faculty. As faculty and staff have responded to the open invitation to participate in the Campus Conversations, and through suggestions of potential faculty and staff made by the Leadership Group, the Academic Senate, and College Administration, additional individuals have been identified to participate as consultants. These consultants will work with the Leadership Group on an ad hoc basis for specific topics.
The Teaching Academy Leadership Group consists of eleven faculty re p resenting a range of disciplines who 1) are recognized for their outstanding teaching and dedication to learning, and 2) possess special expertise in distance learning and/or diversity. Through in-depth discussion, the leadership group is identifying issues and developing strategies for Foothill to broaden the scholarship of teaching and improve student learning with respect to the two areas of on-line education and student diversity.

Campus Identification of Primary Issues

T
he seminars, forums, and discussions have resulted in the identification of two very different but critical areas upon which to focus:


  • Issue One: On-line Instruction
  • Issue Two: Student Diversity

F
oothill's faculty and staff believe that both of these areas contain powerful, enduring, and widely-recognized dilemmas and challenges to teaching and learning.

Additional Discussions/Research topics

  • Continuing discussion of our campus-wide Learning Inventory Project.
  • Follow-up on the Internet Student Survey done by Roxanne Mendrinos.
  • Continuing discussions of the implications of the Digital Divide and how technology is changing the way we teach and learn.
  • Continued outreach to the Foothill Community by offering open sessions of our Campus Conversations during College Hours and during Flex Day in May.
  • Upgrading and updating our Campus Conversation Intranet web site.
  • Planning our newly allocated space at the Center For Innovation on the Foothill Campus.


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